Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Driving costs and public transportation

There's a nifty little site I found through a link on MSN Money called Sperling's Best Places. Their most recent study is about the most expensive cities to drive in. Funnily enough its the Southeast that is pointed to as the most expensive, even though it has the lowest gas prices. Least expensive, Brownsville, TX. Most expensive, Atlanta, GA. The article explained that "the places experiencing the smallest impact of the rising gas prices have one or more of the following traits; low gas prices, high family income, and a shorter daily commute."

The article focuses on commuting, so don't let it dissuade you from visiting any of the cities on your vacation travels. The southeast and some of the other cities mentioned may have high commuting costs but still be cost effective additions to your summer vacation trips.

Anyway, why don't people use public transportation? Here is a fabulous site, publictransportation.org that is a resource of links and schedules to your county transportation systems. This is a great site. I always have kept schedules I use the most often (city bus, university bus, ferry, train, Greyhound) bookmarked on my computer, but this will be much easier to use. I used to search for the different schedules but this site has their links all in one place.

Wow, you're right... It's interesting that the Southeast has so many cities on the high side. I live in one of the ten most expensive cities and, while my daily roundtrip commute is 'only' about 25 miles, I can definitely see their point about sprawl. While it's nice not have miles of high density housing radiating from downtown, there is definitely a cost to lower density development.--http://www.fivecentnickel.com/